How to Save a Life

In an interview with USA Today, The Fray lead singer Isaac Slade explained that he wrote this song about an experience he had working at Shelterwood, a camp for troubled teens in Denver, Colorado. "One of the kids I was paired up with was a musician," Slade said. "Here I was, a protected suburbanite, and he was just 17 and had all these problems. And no one could write a manual on how to save him." Slade says this kid was battling drug addiction and had been kicked out of the house. Fortunately, he was already on his recovery journey when Slade met him, and he ended up being OK. Slade's takeaway was that ultimatums and "tough love" usually aren't as effective as listening and offering support, which is how to save a life.

The verses find Issac Slade offering compassion to a loved one, patiently listening and trying to help him through a crisis. The chorus, though, finds him anguished because he wasn't able to save this person. "Where did I go wrong?" he wonders. The song shows how suicide or death by addiction can devastate the people who care about that person and are trying so hard to help them. Slade says he heard from lots of fans who used this song to help get them through very difficult periods in their lives.

The Fray are devout Christians, and this song certainly has some religious subtext, with specific references to God: And I pray to God he hears you The Christian music community embraced the song, sending it to #4 on the Christian Songs chart, but it wasn't marketed as a religious song and was also a hit in the secular community - it made #3 on the Hot 100 and was also a #1 Adult Contemporary hit. The Fray stressed that although they were Christian, they weren't making Christian music.